You can install our site as a web app on your iOS device by utilizing the Add to Home Screen feature in Safari. Please see this thread for more details on this.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
It is a red small engine corvette and is about 4 years old. It does have exactly what I said it did because he demo'd it for me. Perhaps is is amplifying the sound but regardless, it is enhanced sound. I don't follow these types of things so all I can do is report what I was shown.
He never has been a finance guy, but he has always tried to make the cheapest possible solution seem like something more to average consumer. Anybody who was [at least partly] responsible for BMW 3-series, Pontiac GTO and Ford Explorer can "make a silk purse from a sows ear". He's old and out-of-date but nobody should call him an "ignoramus" on any subject. Senile, perhaps, but probably not. Give the guy his due, he was a giant among auto execs, sort of like Lee Iacocca, but with brains.For an executive, Bob Lutz has an ignormaus level understanding of financial performance. Either that or he is flat out lying.
McRat, thanks for the clarification.It's just the engine producing the sound. And unlike BMW, which uses the stereo speakers to add sound, it increases engine output at higher RPM.
An eng'g dilemna occurs with ICE engines. Cylinder scavenging assists volumetric efficiency, but the length and dia of the intake runners and exhaust tubes enhance VE based on RPM and strength of the pulses. When a pulse travels down a tube, it generates a negative pressure wave that travels up the tube when the dia opens up.
Motorcycles and high performance engines often have active systems to alter the geometry after a certain RPM to give more average HP over the range (area under the curve). It's a long standing eng'g tech for variable RPM engines.
Cliff Notes - altering backpressure based on RPM makes ICE's more efficient and powerful. V-Tech might be one you've heard about.
In addition to the power and efficiency improvements we also know that some careful design helps produce the manufacturer-specific sounds, with (correct me if I am wrong) very few resorting to use of the audio system to imitate the engine sounds they want.It's just the engine producing the sound. ..
I'll argue: you don't even need to 'nail it'. It sounds great idling.Yes, many cars including Ferrari, actually "tune" the exhaust for the right pitch without harming performance. First they get the peak performance at the legal sound levels, then they play with resonators and muffler design to give the car the "correct" sound. Few can argue that a Ferrari sounds sweet when you nail it.
Or, for that matter, with external speakers à la the Stuka dive bomber to instill shock-and-awe.As long as we all agree that playing fake sound though the internal speakers is dumb.
He never has been a finance guy, but he has always tried to make the cheapest possible solution seem like something more to average consumer. Anybody who was [at least partly] responsible for BMW 3-series, Pontiac GTO and Ford Explorer can "make a silk purse from a sows ear". He's old and out-of-date but nobody should call him an "ignoramus" on any subject. Senile, perhaps, but probably not. Give the guy his due, he was a giant among auto execs, sort of like Lee Iacocca, but with brains.
Huh?However, he has never done a thing that required technical innovation. Never. When faced with such an issue he's always wanted to find a cheap way out. Of course he cannot grasp a real BEV, although he has tried. The Volt followed his tried and true formula, making no technical advance but selecting the cheapest sources for something that has market appeal.
I do not credit him with the Volt design. The Volt does represent significant innovation, I would not argue otherwise. My only disagreement, if any, is the idea that Lutz had anything to do with technical issues for the Volt. No question about it he has been a proponent of hybrids, just as he has dissed BEV solutions. he deserves credit for his advocacy. By the time taht one came around Lutz had a diminished star but was credited with a good sense of market timing.Huh?
A Volt was a BEV with a half-sized battery with an innovative thermal management design and a gas engine using a fuel tank that could store gas for up to a year without going stale and an innovative new transmission that could dynamically switch between series mode and an EVT. The Volt was the first car to ever use an output-split EVT (Prius uses an input-split EVT). The Volt was the first car that I'm aware of to use a battery thermal management system that interleaves pouch cells with full contact thin aluminum fins with built-in liquid thermal channels.
Yet you say the Volt made no technical advance and did not require technical innovation but a BEV (such as a LEAF) would do both of those things? That makes no sense.
Jealousy is not attractive and often makes the person appear little, ignorant, and dumb.
I'm still waiting to hear which company bankrolled the Prius "dirtier than a Hummer" FUD. I'll give 2:1 odds it was GM.
Stray auto executives have been known to say strange things. Would you not guess that one needs a "seriously well-developed National Enquirer-style conspiracy theory receptivity gene" to actually think that really happened.I would love to see even a wildly speculative grassy knoll explanation of how that happened.
Supposedly, Lutz originally proposed the Volt as a BEV but an engineering exec talked him into going with an EREV design based on battery costs and energy density at the time back in 2006. Later, as the powertrain was being design, Lutz reportedly had to push back on a proposal to go with non-EREV controls that would have started the gas engine under some circumstances when the battery still had usable energy. Lutz supposedly insisted the gas engine only start when the battery was empty because drivers would want to maximize the all-electric experience.I do not credit him with the Volt design. The Volt does represent significant innovation, I would not argue otherwise. My only disagreement, if any, is the idea that Lutz had anything to do with technical issues for the Volt. No question about it he has been a proponent of hybrids, just as he has dissed BEV solutions. he deserves credit for his advocacy.
I guess his point is he's not like Straubel (and perhaps Elon) who started out with engineering/scientific backgrounds and so does play a role in the technical nuances of the product. However, I would presume not a whole lot of auto executives are like that (Mary Barra is however).Supposedly, Lutz originally proposed the Volt as a BEV but an engineering exec talked him into going with an EREV design based on battery costs and energy density at the time back in 2006. Later, as the powertrain was being design, Lutz reportedly had to push back on a proposal to go with non-EREV controls that would have started the gas engine under some circumstances when the battery still had usable energy. Lutz supposedly insisted the gas engine only start when the battery was empty because drivers would want to maximize the all-electric experience.
Even with gas-only cars, I doubt Lutz was in there wearing a lab coat sculpting the cylinder combustion chamber design or calculating the torque converter parameters with a slide rule. As far as I know, he's always just been a marketing and management type who knew what he wanted the driving experience to be but left the technical details to others.
You must be kiddingNo question about it he has been a proponent of hybrids